How to fix your smartphone

Lots of things can go wrong with a phone. We can't fix your network reception or your billing complaints, but we can help you get the most out of your smartphone.

If your phone won't turn onPop out the battery and try another one, if possible, or try connecting it to a power adapter or powered USB port.

It's not always a power-related problem; if you unlocked your phone or flashed it with custom firmware, that can interfere with the normal boot process, but not with its 'PC mode' functions, which might let you restore the original firmware.

If you can't connect to your service networkYou might just be in a dead zone - and you can't do anything about that.

However, if your voice service is working just fine but your data service won't connect, try switching your phone into Airplane Mode (for Android phones, you can usually just press the power button once to bring up a menu and select Airplane Mode), and then back into regular mode to reset your data connection.

If your phone is slow or crashingMore apps and more data on your phone mean more problems.

Both BlackBerry and Android users will want to grab a process viewer/task manager app and a file manager app to help keep your phone as clear as possible.

If your battery is draining too quicklyBatteries don't live forever, and if you're using your smartphone to play music, keep up on Twitter and give you driving directions while you're taking a call, it's not going to last long at all.

However, it might also be running down prematurely because you have unused apps and processes running in the background, so a task manager app will help you eke a little more juice out of your phone.

Also, turning off services like GPS and Wi-Fi when you're not using them will help, as will sticking to Wi-Fi for web browsing when you have a usable network.